Robotics Team Wins Award at International Competition

On Saturday, the Waukesha-area high school robotics team, C.O.R.E. Robotics, won the top award for its safety program at the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship in St. Louis.

Thirty-four high school students from the area and all three of Waukesha’s high schools traveled with the team to compete in the event. About 400 teams from the United States and abroad, including Israel, Canada and Mexico, competed at the event.

This year’s FIRST robotics game, Rebound Rumble, was a hybrid of robotics and basketball. The team’s robot had to shoot balls into basketball hoops of varying heights and balance on a bridge with another robot. But robotics is not only about which team has the most successful robot on the field.

The team won the Underwriter’s Laboratory Industrial Safety Award based on a number of criteria, according to the team’s safety captain, Daniel Copeland.

“They chose the team that truly exemplifies safety practices, not only in the pits and in competition but also in the work place and training program for the team,” he said.

Outreach is an important aspect.

C.O.R.E. Robotics measured up to the high standards set up by UL for the award. The team performs community outreach in its safety program, selling first aid kits as a fundraiser for the team, plus Copeland has taken training to become a UL Safety Smart Ambassador, learning how to teach workshops about safety to younger children.

“Our team has an excellent safety program. It’s a safety culture we can all take pride in,” said team spokesperson Emma Krauska.

The team bases its safety program on the 5-S methodology started by Toyota. The five Ss are sort, shine, straighten, standardize and sustain.

“By following this, we can have an extremely efficient and organized pit area,” Copeland said. Their pit, or work area, has won numerous awards and was an example to other teams on how to build and organize a pit.

The team was recognized in other areas, too.

In addition to winning the safety award, the team was in the top 10 at the competition for its computer-aided design work, which is a 3D model of their robot and video explaining its features, and in the top 20 for its animation video based on the theme of the school of tomorrow.

Also, team member Annalyssa Martin was a finalist for the Dean's List award for students who exemplify FIRST values. FIRST Robotics stresses team cooperation and competition (termed ‘coopertition’) and gracious professionalism.

Krauska said that the high point for the team was during the last match. It had been a frustrating competition up until then, with problems due to luck of the draw, erratic programming or control issues.

But the last match, “everything was finally functioning well,” she said. The team won the match.

The season isn’t over for the ambitious team. After debriefing from the recent trip to St. Louis and a lull in the action, the team will begin working on their summer season, which includes team unity activities, community outreach and education for team members such as learning other programming languages.

“There are so many other parts to robotics,” Krauska said.